Monday, July 27, 2009

I saw a friend's facebook status that said - flour, sugar, canned pineapple = cake even the kids can make.

That got me interested, so I googled it - and guess what it is true!!

I have very few recipes that are ENTIRELY from the cupboard... meaning No eggs, butter, milk, cream cheese etc!! I like the thought of knowing atleast a few recipes incase of having to eat that food storage :) and this one is YUM!!

Preparation:1. In a bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, sugar and vanilla.2. Gently mix in the undrained can of crushed pineapple. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the pineapple juice to use in the glaze.3. Pour into a greased and floured 9×13 pan.4. Bake 35-40 minutes (until the center is set). Let cool for 5-6 minutes.5. Pour the glaze over the hot cake.

NOTESIt does taste best warmIt can go a bit rubbery (no eggs or butter etc) but I still liked itIt was a little too sweet (OH those US recipes!!) with all that sugar, I found a similar Australian recipe that said just 1 cup of sugar.I used half brown sugar, half white and used half whole meal flour and half white and tasted yum.

VERY EASY and made my - no yummy food in the house, and lack of ingredients, but I have a craving for something sweet Saturday :)

Thursday, July 23, 2009

A friend bought the most delicious apple crumble tart thingy's to bookclub... we have an overabundance of apples due to our market runs... so I had to make them... I put it down to cravings :) LOL and too many apples :)

She put hers in premade tartlet shells - I recommend, hers tasted better, but my shop didnt have any :(

So I cut out some circles from shortcrust pastry and placed them in my muffin tin.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Yesterday I saw a Taggie Giraffe Tutorial on Chasing Cheerios and HAD to make one!! Hers are totally cute!! If you are good at sewing, you could do this in like 15 mins! I took longer as I mistakedly cut the giraffes facing the same direction !! so had to cut more for the other side.

I didn't have too much material to play with as I have been recycling the girls old stained dresses to do most of my sewing these days. I totally recommend it, as some of the dresses had stains on the front but the rest of the material is perfect and cute!! I used a friends rotary cutter a few weeks ago to cut the dresses up into fat quarters.. I have a pile of lovely fabrics - for FREE!! A few of The MR's shirts got cut up too!!

My only problem.. the other girls like to think the things I sew are for them... so we have whipped up a couple more to keep their dirty mitts off the one for baby.. so my 15 mins turned into hours at the machine with all the girls around me.

After that I was inspired to make a Taggie Blanket for my own baby using left overs from the last one I made for my neice Tag Blanket Tutorial Here

Now I should be doing useful things like filling my freezer with precooked dinners or something... OH well..... too bad :)

Saturday, July 18, 2009

we might not win, or be good runners at all.. oh but we are good at team spirit :) Blue Hair, painted faces, searching the entire house for any Blue clothes we own.. we even took blue blankets to sit on! And I am not biased when I say their team had the best and loudest cheers... most often sung.

Looking through all her photos she is defined by gorgeous big blue eyes, no hair, dirty face, cheeky smiles, DUMMIES! too many photos with dummies in them (pacifier for those not in the know) sneaking into food - milo, nutella, peanut butter, butter; no clothes and a very few cute well dressed shots... That would be Miss G in a nutshell

I was wrong about not doing ANY last minute birthday sewing!! I was going through my material scraps and found the half finished playsilks (intended Christmas Gift for Miss G) and decided to finish them up for her birthday (I was feeling the consumerist guilt of only having bought ONE present for her)

Playsilks are a gift where the child may look at you blankly and push to the side at first (hurting your sewing heart :) But they may become the most played with gift after the fact. And so far the older girls have played with them ALOT MORE than Miss G

so far they have been:

bandageswrist, waist and ankle wearcapesblindfolds

and the most bizarre - my 8 year old enjoys having a couple hang out the back of her shorts (looking like a painter or builder who has a rag/cloth hanging out) she even went grocery shopping like this with me asking why? she had no reason.. she just liked it... ummmmmm OK....

Playsilks can be expensive to buy so I sewed my own out of the cheap material usually used for clothes lining? I don't know what its called but it was like $4 m and I only bought 1/2 m of each colour, so downside is that my playsilks are small and not silk... but still lots of fun

Monday, July 13, 2009

Remember These Name Pillows? Well I am so organised with this baby (cough cough) that today I finished her pillow - minus the name and birth date part :) Still working on the name part - have it down to 4 Possible Names with a last minute entry making it to the top of the list.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Morning started with all the traditions - Birthday Letter, Balloons, Number Shirt, Candle Ring, Birthday Crown and a cupcake for her breakfast :)

She had a small party with friends from our Mothers Group. She wanted party hats, bubbles and facepainting - Done! As her older sisters are home on School Holidays I made them in charge of entertainment. They did great! Had the kids lined up for facepainting (some interesting designs came out) and made them sit and watch them pretend to be clowns! I might hire those entertainers again!!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

For weeks all Miss G has talked about is Cupcakes! So cupcakes she got. We even got a cupcake Tree from Grandma a week before!! Perfect timing!! And she didn't even know we would need one

Odd mix of Cookie Monster Cupcakes and Ladybug cupcakes but it was what she wanted!! I think though that she thinks the blue ones are Sully from Monsters Inc.. anyway she called them "Mot Mot" Cakes.

Cookie Monster Cupcake Idea from Cupcakes and All things Sweet Hers are more professional though!! I don't have any piping bag things, so I just ran a fork along the icing for a bit more of a 'fur' look. I also used Mint balls (kool mints) for the eyes, I wasn't rolling any icing ;)

Ladybug Cupcakes Idea came from Google Images - I copied These ones I will say though, I think the choc chips were too tempting for little kids. After the party I found about 5 or so cupcakes around the yard all missing their choc chips, but the rest of the cake not eaten. I don't think any kid that took a ladybug cake ate it - Just a note :)

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

These are a sample of the party bags I made for Miss G's upcoming birthday.. I put in a juice popper, bubbles, balloon, dinosaur, whistle and a couple of lollies. I think I have everything ready except the cake :) The idea came from my friends Stampin Up Blog check hers out as they are much cuter (I don't own any cool stamps or ink pads)

Now if I could focus the baby nesting fever into actually being ready to have a baby come into this house in a month.. that would be a much better idea!! I am soooo NOT ready... LOL

Monday, July 6, 2009

My first idea was this one (once again from filth wizardry) about making origami boxes. With the many asian students that have lived with us over the years, we are pretty good at origami, but the girls got frustrated that their boxes didnt turn out too well(it is very important in this one that the folds be perfect)so I made these boxes, and then the idea was shelved! The boxes are about 5cm square, perfect for little toys

So moving on.... what is better than containers for your feet?? Exactly!! I still did the folding, but the girls measured and put their feet in etc and decorated! Making Paper shoes is fun!! This Idea once again from Filth Wizardry - with instructions from Instructables

One Shoe waiting

Gorgeous Dahhhling!!

And this is a project we started today from a wax fruit box - an easy castle.. we might add to it... we might not.. but it's a container!!!

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus ~ Phillipians 4:6-7

Thursday, July 2, 2009

First day of the holidays we made about 5 kg of playdough.. I was inspired by my new favourite mum/kid craft blog Filth Wizardry (I totally recommend you take half an hour and scroll through all her archives.. I did and have enough ideas to keep the kids busy all holidays :)

So far we have made a Train World, Cupcake Cafe, Dino World.. am working on a castle them for later.

It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Bought 1 bag of flour, 1 bag salt and 2 containers of cream of tartar. I made three lots on the stove, the older girls mixed their's in a bowl with boiled water from a jug - the no cook recipe - The kitchen was covered in a lot of flour though!!

The best idea is to get them to create a world (grass, water, dirt etc) and add toys.... remind them not to mix the colours.. has worked so far :)

It has been ages since we have made playdough (big amounts of it - we have those tiny Playdoh shop bought ones) because our last house had cream carpet the whole way through.. even under the dining table.... is there some secret factory out there churning out cheap cream carpet making investors think it is a good idea for their rental?? So I stopped that sort of thing.. but we have been in our current house for years and there isnt ANY carpet in the whole house... so what was I waiting for??!!